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Also available: the Lust, Caution soundtrack showcasing the original musical score by Golden Globe Award®-winning composer Alexandre Desplat (The Queen, The Painted Veil).

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Provocative, thrilling and passionate, Lust, Caution is the daring new film from acclaimed Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Set against the backdrop of a transforming country, a young woman finds herself swept up in a radical plot to assassinate a ruthless and secretive intelligence agent. As she immerses herself in her role as a cosmopolitan seductress, she becomes entangled in a dangerous game that will ultimately determine her fate. Erotic, breathtaking and suspenseful, this award-winning film is being called "exquisitely beautiful" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) and "lushly sensual" (Leah Rozen, People).

Amazon.com

Lust, Caution, Ang Lee's follow up to Brokeback Mountain, for which he won the Academy Award® for Best Director, continues his exploration of people with a passion for each other trapped in a world where their passion could be life-threatening, but in a very different context this time. Set in China during the Japanese occupation of early World War II, the underlying plot concerns the story of young Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), an actress and member of a small group of student resistors planning to infiltrate the home of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a high-ranking collaborationist government official, in order to kill him for his role in the torture and executions of Chinese resistance fighters. Chi ingratiates herself with Yee's wife, the sophisticated and cultured Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen) under the guise of being the wife of a wealthy but unseen tycoon. Flashbacks tell the tale of how Chi came to be involved with the resistors: her acting ability is her most valuable asset, and her assignment is to act the role of Mr. Yee's lover, right down to the sex. The story of their love and the painful intimacy it involves for both of them is told through their sexual relationship, which starts out violently, drifts into S&M, and shifts with their feelings, moving from pain and fear to some sort of desperate connection. This is lust with a capital L; the film's sex scenes have become famous for their frankness and acrobatic portrayals (they took 12 days to film), but amazingly enough, it's never prurient. The nature of their sexual relationship, and not the sex itself, is the point. Chi falls in love with the man she's supposed to kill, but there is no stopping the mission and she knows it. The danger of it all collapsing for them both is ever present, and that's the Caution. The cinematography and direction in Lust, Caution is masterful, and every scene is beautiful. The film does drift into a languid pace, and at times one wonders why Lee would feel the need to draw it out at the expense of delaying the crucial climactic scenes. Still, it's a wonderful piece of storytelling that should only help solidify Ang Lee's place in cinematic history as a master of films that express the difficulty of being essentially human in an inhumane world. --Daniel Vancini

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Ang Lee breaks through again with a masterful adaptation of Eileen Chang's short story, Lust/Caution (like what he did with Annie Prolux's similarly brief story, Brokeback Mountain). While the hype seems to be mostly misplaced on the controversial acrobatics displayed by Tony Leung and Tang Wei in bed, Lee's storytelling leaves one breathless.

The love story unfolds against the backdrop of 1930's Japanese-invaded Shanghai where tyranny and suffering were synonymous. Nubile Wang Jia Zhi played by Tang Wei joins the resistance movement and gets herself drawn into the role of a spy to crumble the traitor, Mr Yee. In between the espionage and wild climatic trysts, both of them unknowingly embroil themselves in love and deceit, much deeper than they would have liked themselves to.

Tang Wei, as a newcomer to cinema, is impeccable. Her evolution from a wide-eyed country girl to a seductive temptress is enough to make the hardest of most men, in this case, the distrusting Mr. Yee fall for her. Wei acts pretty much on instincts and her body language does wonders at seducing the somewhat vulnerable Mr. Yee played by multiple-award winner Tony Leung. Wei breaks down in the memorable scene where she's talking to the resistance leader on her unyieldingly sacrificial role that is both a torment and insidious attack to her emotions.

As usual, Tony has the penchant for playing dark brooding men and in this instance, an evil Chinese traitor. He does not act. His presence already commands attention as the cynical no-nonsense minister. The pivotal sex scenes, split into three parts, are not just there for visual enhancement. They actually convey the shift in roles between the two throughout their complex relationship.Read more ›

I saw this movie twice in the theater - very unusual for someone as critical of movies as I am. The first time I went by myself, and the second time I took my husband, who was not initially interested in the story line (espionage and all). He also liked it a lot (though he did not have as much of a personal connection as I did with the film). I was like in a zone for a few days after I saw the movie. It really shook me to the core in a sense. A very powerful movie in and of itself, it moves me particularly because I am orinigally from China and Eileen Chang was one of my faovrite writers when I was a teenager book worm. Having grown up surrounded by the communisit propaganda, I found it refreshing to watch a movie so artfully done to create a theme about love, sexuality and loyalty. It shows how innocent and ignorant the young revolutionaries could be (something that was obviously omitted from our history lessons). This is a movie about powerful human emotions, like all the other movies directed by Ang Lee. I'm also happy to see Ang Lee sticking to making movies based on good, solid stories, instead of falling into the 'glitz overriding story' trap like so many other talented Chinese directors, Zhang Yimou and Cheng Kaige specifically.

Ang Lee said that he made this film for the Chinese audience, but I also read that he was disappointed by the fact that the Chinese media focused predominantly on the raw, sex scenes. I can understand his frustration. I wonder really how the mainland Chinese will embrace such a tale. Eileen Chang was never a Communist writer. In the book and the movie, the revolutionaries were referred to as 'the people from Chongqing.Read more ›

I first heard about Lust, Caution, like many others, due to its NC-17 rating by the MPAA. As this rating has tended to be an oracle of box office failure in the past, most studios due whatever needed to avoid it in theatrical release. Undaunted, director Ang Lee creates a film whose story and essence require scenes depicting the intimacy and emotion of very graphic sexuality. However, the film is not pornography, not sex and genitals for the sake of sex and genitals, but is rather an attempt to tell a story with the inclusion of sex for emphasis and impact--something all to often done with violence and completely overlooked in film ratings.

The story takes place in 1930s Shanghai, a Chinese city under Japanese occupation. While this setting is necessary to the plot, it also immerses the audience in a time and place completely foreign to all but the oldest generations in China today. Rations, checkpoints, suppression of movement and goods are all elements weighing on the movie's characters, but through connections and resourcefulness, most manage something just shy of a normal existence despite bearing the stress of war.

I cannot recommend this film to those easily upset by nudity or sexuality in film, nor those rare individuals averse to scenes of violence. But, for adults interested in a serious film filled with brutal emotion, the horrors of wartime, and the occasional tragedy of youthful rebellion, do see this.

Watched this movie a couple of days ago, the more I think about it, the more I like it. The graphic scense are controversial but it's the subtleties that spoke to the meaning of the film. In general it's a little long but it's worthy to see all the beautiful details created by the Ang Lee team, the old Shanghai scenes were just gorgeous and unforgettable. I think it could be a little bit more solid, so it's not perfect. Acting and visuals were great, story was very heavy but powerful.

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I was sad about the ending, but think it is consistent with the characters of both. Yee is a monster, torturing those who threaten the Japanese occupation. He plays one role at home for his wife and her friends and another as the collaborating traitor, willing to do anything to maintain his... Read More

As long as it is the right region you're getting a perfectly fine product. I have blu-ray imports of Children of Men, Trainspotting, The Seventh Seal, and a few others that all play fine. The only thing is you might need to change the subtitles.